446 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1754. 



In what year Pisistratus digested Homer's poems, is not said ; but it was pro- 

 bably some time while he was in credit; and therefore it is likely about this 

 very year 557 before Christ. 



On the whole, says Mr. C. I think it may be concluded, with a good degree 

 of probability, from what has been here laid down, that the Iliad and Od)'ssey 

 were both composed about the time of Cyrus, or the year before Christ 558, if, 

 as the ancients generally do, we make his reign to commence from his taking of 

 Babylon. And since those that make Hesiod the elder of the two poets, place 

 him but a few years earlier than Homer, not enough however to cause any ob- 

 servable change in the rising of the fixed stars ; we may take the difference, at a 

 medium, at 20 or 22 years ; which will bring us to the year before Christ 580, 

 for the time when Hesiod flourished. 



The only difficulty that I think can be made to this, is, how to reconcile it 

 with the express testimony of Herodotus to the contrary. In his life of Homer, 

 he places him 622 years before the expedition of Xerxes into Europe ; but in his 

 history he says, both Homer and Hesiod were not more than 400 years before 

 his time ; that is, since there were but 50 years between the Peloponnesian war 

 and the battle at Salamis, little more than 450 years before the same expedition. 

 Scaliger, in his notes on Eusebius, corrects the former passage of Herodotus by 

 the latter; and, instead of Igaitocria, reads TsVpajcoffia ; which will place Homer 

 about the year before Christ 002, consistent enough with Paterculus and the 

 marble, but different from his history by 7 1 years. Whether this correction of 

 Scaliger's be right, or not, I shall not here stand to inquire ; but I am apt to 

 think the word T£Tpa>co(n'oio-i itself, in Herodotus, is corrupt. 



The Greek chronology, like that of other nations, has been generally carried 

 up too high ; the natural consequence of ignorance, and a defect of memoirs. 

 This is only now to be corrected by persons of learning and abilities, capable of 

 examining and comparing things with each other. 



LX. An Additional Remark to one of Mr. JV. Walson, F.R.S. in his Account 

 of the Abbe Nonet's Letter on Electricity. By T. Birch,* D.D. Sec. U.S. 



Mr. Watson, in a note upon his account of the ninth letter of the Abbe 

 Nollet concerning electricity, read before this Society on the 17 th of May 1753, 



* Dr. Tho. Birch was born at Loudon in 1705. His parents were quakers, and they intended 

 him for trade ; but the love of learning prevailed, in which he was permitted to pursue his inclination, 

 on condition that he should provide for himself. Hence he became usher successively in three schools 

 kept by quakers. Having quitted the Society of the Friends, however, in 1730 he was ordained 

 deacon, and the next year priest ; about which time he obtained a living in Gloucestershire, and 

 afterwards that of Ulting in Essex. In 1734 he became domestic chaplain to Lord Kilmarnock, who 

 was executed in 1746 for his share in the rebellion. In 1735 Dr. Birch was elected f. r. s. and f. a. s. 



